The Panthers star Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. Photo / Supplied
The Panthers star Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi. Photo / Supplied
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The Panthers television soundtrack has won best music for an original series at the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Silver Scroll Awards - and the series has also just been nominated for 18 awards across multiple TV categories.
At the APRA awards night at Spark arena, singer and songwriter Dupé spoke about the positive reception he'd received and how grateful he was to help tell the Dawn Raids story through music.
"It's been nothing but praise.
"Coming from Grey Lynn and being able to represent my people, not just Pacific Islanders but also Grey Lynn and the people that were affected by it [the Dawn Raids], it was a real honour," Dupé says.
Album music producer Joel Tashkoff was proud to receive the award in front of his peers.
"It's mean. At the end of the day, we put in so much work to get the story and do justice to the source material that was helping to tell the story through music," he said.
"To be acknowledged on a forum like this in front of our peers and in front of legends, not just for the music but as te ao Māori, is pretty special."
The four-man crew were up against two other TV series - Conrad Wedde, Samuel Scott, Luke Buda (Moniker) for Wellington Paranormal and Claire Cowan for One Lane Bridge.
Tashkoff, who is a music lawyer, says it's extra special that they were able to win a tightly contested award.
The Panthers picked up the APRA award. Photo / Supplied
"You just feel humbled and honoured.
"Because of the people who have come before us that have won this award, there's a whakapapa of excellence there and so I am pretty proud of our team."
Dupé, Tashkoff and Jonathan Crayford (best known for his role in the movie The Pianist) were the core team in preparing music for the TV series with Kingi joining a month before finishing the album.
Dupé, who is of Niuean heritage, felt the key to the success of the soundtracks was that everyone knew how to use their strengths to add value to the music.
"Everybody played their role, like you [Taskoff] were the producer and Jonathan Crayford did the score. We all kind of stayed in their own lanes and it worked."
Tashkoff confirmed this by paying tribute to the talents of his musicians and how they appreciated each other's work.
The Panthers follows the story of the Dawn Raids. Photo / Supplied
He feels the love for each other's talents was what helped create a happy working environment to record the music they wanted.
"I didn't know Jonathan before we started working together but when I saw what he could do on the piano, that guy is a tohunga on the piano. He's the man, jazz hands.
"You can tell him something like a melody and he just goes and plays all these extended versions of the chords and he's been doing it for so long.
"So I admired him for that. I didn't think I was that much compared to him but he told me he admired me for something he can't do."
Previous winners of the award include Karl Steven for the show Black Hands and David Long for The Luminaries.
There were five awards, two hall of fame inductions and 11 live music performances throughout the evening that included Tiki Taane, Stan Walker and Annie Crummer.
Meanwhile, the Panthers has received the most nominations of any individual production with a total of 18 nods across multiple categories, including all three finalists vying for this year's Screen Auckland Best Director: Drama/Comedy Drama Award (Tom Hern & Vea Mafile'o, Miki Magasiva and Chris Graham & Mario Faumui) at the New Zealand Television Awards announced last night.
